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Tag Archives: coming out

That’s what I called the plan. I was afraid of my father. Very afraid. History of homophobia + has guns = me scared, but I needed to come out. So, I decided to wait til two days before moving to Austin. Then I secretly placed a letter on the table where they keep the keys. After that, I disappeared. I went completely dark. I was nigh unreachable.

I sat in a hotel room surfing the internet waiting for the call from my brother to tell me how they reacted. It was much later than I thought before I heard from him. He texted. The texts were not happy ones. I think he got upset that he was put in the middle of it all. I didn’t even think of that. I was more concerned with not being attacked that I didn’t consider that it would turn out badly for him.

Then I had an email in my inbox. My mom asking me to call her and insisting that we still have a dinner that we had planned to celebrate my ex’s graduation. Was odd but I made contact. Was terrified. According to everyone my dad was being very quiet but no one told me if he was mad or not.

The funniest thing happened. They were totally OK with it. We actually went to that dinner and I got a picture of myself next to my mom in somewhat feminine clothes(fem enough to be called ‘miss’ by the waiter). The food was pretty Decent too. I even went to visit them before taking off for Austin.

And that was it? Story over happy ending? Pretty much. At least that chapter for now.

Just over a year ago, after years of silently needing to be a woman, I finally told my partner how I felt. Since then I have been working toward being accepted as a woman. I’ve taken a lot of small steps but I still have a lot of steps to go. For this occasion I’d like to recount the past year for anyone who wants to read it.

Learning who I am:

Like many stories this one begins with a girl. I was at an IGN forum when by chance I ran into a post made by a very special trans woman. Despite being super shy (even online) I made the effort to befriend her.

Being friends with her sort of indirectly lead to me running into the book She’s Not the Man I Married by Helen Boyd. I needed a book for a school project and I decided to look for a book about trans people. I bought Helen’s book despite it not being what I needed for class.

I read and loved Helen’s book so I bought her first book My Husband Betty. I didn’t get through a single chapter in that book before running into a passage that sounded eerily familiar to the day before when my girlfriend went out and I was wearing her dress while she was away.

Finally, the years of wishing I was a woman and years of dressing in my partner’s clothes while she was away started to make sense.

Coming out to my Partner:

It only took me a few hours to wrap my head around the fact that I am trans but it took me a full three days to work up the courage to tell her. I did a horrible job of it, too. She noticed that something was on my mind. After an awkward lunch she asked me what was wrong. I asked her not to look directly at me and then blurted it out bluntly and not at all concise.

After that was a lot of silence followed by a lot of crying and then more silence. Then finally, there was a lot of follow up conversations. Follow up conversations that only very recently, almost a year later, did we stop having.

Acceptance:

I spent too much of this past year trying to convince myself I was a crossdresser and that I wouldn’t transition. I started examining what I needed. What steps did I feel I need to take? After a while I started to realize that all the things I wanted aren’t what a crossdresser would want. It was a slow acceptance but I finally realized that I needed to transition.

Difficulties:

I’ve written about the difficulties I’ve faced and other trans people have written about it. Poor school counselors, transphobic comments from students and teachers (and I am not even out at school), lack of services, every endocrinologist in town refusing to treat trans patients, etc. There is very little to say on the subject that hasn’t been said a thousand times.

Taking Steps:

It took some effort but I finally started HRT and while I can’t afford therapy, I do have friends which help more than any bad therapist ever could. I recently started wearing shirts with the TG emblem on them in hopes that other trans people will seek me out. No luck so far but I am hopeful.

Hopes for the Future:

Very soon I hope to leave this town and hopefully find a better place to transition and a strong community to support me. I won’t lie. I get very lonely. Esp. late at night when all my friends sign offline and I’m left to my thoughts. My biggest hope is for that to change.

A Final Note:

I am very grateful both for the first trans friend I met whom has helped me more than any other person and for Helen Boyd who’s wonderful writing allowed me to accept who I am.